The disclosure relates to a continuous centrifuge that continuously flows a specimen so as to centrifuge particles in the liquid specimen in the rotor, and particularly to a continuous centrifuge provided with a cleansing mode for cleansing or sterilization inside the rotor.
A centrifuge is an apparatus that separates particles which do not sink or rarely sink in a general gravitational field, and viruses, fungus body or the like may be the subject of such separation. Viruses or fungus body are essential raw materials for the manufacture of medicines, vaccines or the like, and a continuous centrifuge is widely used as an apparatus that separates and purifies raw materials in the manufacturing process of medicines, vaccines or the like. A continuous centrifuge includes a line for flowing a specimen, which is constituted with a rotor which rotates at a high speed, two rotation shafts which are connected to the top and bottom of the rotor and include through holes, or the like. Since a continuous centrifuge sometimes deals with a specimen, such as an influenza vaccine, it is important to sterilize and/or cleanse the specimen line after operation in such cases.
In general, after an operation of a continuous centrifuge is finished, it is common to take the rotor out of the centrifuging chamber and then disassemble and sterilize and/or cleanse the rotor for which cleansing machines or the like have been produced. It takes at least 20 to 30 minutes or more to take out and disassemble a rotor, and, furthermore, it often takes 30 minutes or more to cleanse the removed rotor, and fixing the cleansed rotor back to the centrifuging chamber also takes a similar amount of time to taking out and disassembling the rotor. Therefore, provided is a continuous centrifuge equipped with a sterilization mode for conducting Steam in Place (SIP) sterilization in which vapor is flowed through a specimen line without taking the rotor out of the centrifuging chamber. For example, the continuous centrifuge described in JP-A-2006-21121 is equipped with a mode commonly known as a sterilization mode in which sterilization of the specimen line is conducted using vapor without taking the rotor out.